Yes, debut reality “star” and sugar junkie Honey Boo-Boo and her mother are easy targets. But I’m trying to remind myself that, while other people’s drama (real or inflated) can be fascinating to watch unfold, it’s a dirty kind of ‘entertainment’.
That’s the topic of my latest post at Babble, where I compared our cultural obsession with reality TV “train wrecks” to my years-long habitual reading of a so-called “hate blog”: a habit I am committed to breaking starting, well, yesterday. From the post:
It doesn’t matter if the blogger in question “deserves” the treatment, or if the “reality” show parents are, well, unreal. It doesn’t matter if they deserve the outrage, the snark, the judgment. It really doesn’t.
What matters is that we’ve got better things to do. Better people to be.
I’d love for you to read the rest of the post and tell me what you think! Do you ever go looking for drama as a source of entertainment? How does it make you feel afterward?
I think it’s important to take a stand against these kind of things by not providing the financial fuel for them to function. That’s why I made a resolution years ago not to buy any gossip magazine again; because what we consider entertainment fuels paparazzi hounding celebrities to the point of despair or even death. I applaud your post
The last time I felt guilty for falling for bad gossip and drama was when everyone was laughing at Alicia Silverstone for chewing her toddler’s food for him. I even added a comment on a “funny” mom blogger’s site who took jabs at her, laughing at her expense.
The minute I hit submit, I felt terrible. It went against so much of what I believe in, which is that everyone does what works best for them. Alicia Silverstone could turn right around and look at some of my parenting techniques and talk bad about it; no one is perfect, and no one is necessarily right.
Thankfully since then, I just look away. I don’t have TV so I don’t know who honey boo boo is but I do see that name on my Facebook a lot. Otherwise, I try not to include that stuff too much in my life. It’s kind of negative!
We cancelled cable two years ago after our youngest was born and I’m amazed at what a difference it has made in this sense. I was a sucker for TLC, E!, and all things reality. We’d also get sucked into the cable news stuff too. And you know what I’ve noticed after we stopped watching all that? I feel so much happier! I think it goes inline with your other post… watching and judging all those people on tv makes you start questioning your own decisions and who might be judging you that same way.
Don’t get me wrong, we still get plenty of screen time. But it’s “Mindful watching”. We have netflix and will choose a tv series (not reality tv) and watch the whole season. When we sit down at the tv it’s with the intent to watch something specific – not to just channel surf and land on whatever crap looks the most interesting. The kids have an amazing array of choices there too and it’s similar – they make a decision to watch a show and put it on – not just settle for what’s on live at that moment. It really has had a positive affect on our family.
I only heard about Honey boo boo via blogs.